A post on a “well-known hacking community forum” claims almost half a billion WhatsApp records have been breached and are up for sale.The post, which multiple sources have confirmed is likely to be true, claims to be selling an up-to-date, 2022 database of 487 million mobile numbers used on WhatsApp, which contains data from 84 countries.It seems that individual countries’ data is up for grabs, with the US dataset up for $7,000, and British numbers up for a similar per-capita figure of $2,500.Most alarmingly, it doesn’t seem to be an empty promise designed to threaten the Meta-owned company, with almost 2,000 numbers shared with Cybernews in a sample request verified to be WhatsApp users.> These are the best antivirus software options around> This WhatsApp Android knock-off is hijacking user accounts> Some older versions of WhatsApp have a critical security vulnerability, so patch now> This WhatsApp Android knock-off is hijacking user accounts> Some older versions of WhatsApp have a critical security vulnerability, so patch nowLeaked phone numbers could be used for any number of reasons, including marketing and phishing, highlighting the importance of a good ID theft protection tool."